Dravidians from Africa/not Europe

[Clyde A. Winters]

On Mon, 10 Mar 1997, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
 
> Clyde A. Winters wrote:
>
> > In recent posting to this list various authors have suggested
> > that the Dravidians came from Europe or the North. This is highly
> > unlikely, it would appear that the Dravidians originated in Middle
> > Africa and migrated to the Indus Valley and India sometime after
> > 3000 B.C.
>
> This highly unlikely.  We now have a 6000 BC date for Neolithic
> Mehrgarh in Baluchistan, and the roots of the Elamite civilization can
> be traced at least back to Susa A, c. 4000 BC, and the earlier
> Susiana a-e phase (c. 5000-4000 BC).  McAlpine's Proto-Elamo-
> Dravidian can be put with some confidence in the Southern Zagros by
> the start of the Neolithic, c. 8000 BC, spreading from there to the
> Indus (and the Amu-Darya?) by a Neolithic "wave of advance" not
> unlike the model proposed by Colin Renfrew for the spread of
> agricultural peoples across continental Europe.
 
  You are right about the early dates for the Mehrgarh  culture.  This
culture has nothing to do with the historic south Indian cultures which we
use as the Proto-type culture for the Dravidians. The evidence makes it
clear that the pottery used by the South Indian Dravidians and the
Harappans are similar. The cultural evidence, markings on pottery and etc.
for the Mehrgarh and the South Indian and Harappan cultures are
dissimilar.
 
 
>
> Since this is a linguistic list after all, what linguistic
> evidence might there be for an origin of Elamo-Dravidian in
> Nilo-Saharan territory as recently as 3,000 BC?
>
There is plenty of evidence for this relationship which I will post at a
later date.
 
C.A. Winters